Rio Nido Roadhouse wins reversal in costly, 7-year disability access case

A Russian River tavern owner has secured relief from a nearly $250,000 obligation to a Guerneville disability rights advocate stemming from a seven-year legal battle over access to the business, a social fixture for the Rio Nido community.

Ruling in favor of the Rio Nido Roadhouse on an appeal filed by the advocate, Richard Skaff of Guerneville, a three-judge panel erased the award of attorneys’ fees and court costs granted by a Sonoma County Superior Court judge in 2017.

Brad Metzger, owner of the Rio Nido Roadhouse since 2007, said the ruling last week was an immense relief.

“I’m walking around feeling lighter,” he said. “It was a nightmare.”

Had the award of $242,367 been sustained, Metzger, a Forestville resident, said it would have “absolutely been the end of the roadhouse.”

“I could not have begged, stolen or borrowed that much money,” he said.

The financial burden now shifts back to Skaff, a paraplegic who has sued dozens of entities regarding disabled access over several decades.

In vacating the financial award to Skaff, the appeals court sent the case back to the Sonoma County courts, where Metzger, in a turnabout, can seek attorneys’ fees and costs for the prolonged litigation.

Joe Baxter, a Sebastopol attorney representing Metzger, said he will ask “for at least $400,000,” the amount Skaff’s attorneys had originally sought, prior to the appeal.

“He’s going to have to pay the price for filing a groundless lawsuit,” Baxter said.

The 25-page appellate decision, issued last week, said Skaff’s claim filed in 2013 had “no legal merit” and that the ruling by Sonoma County Judge Allan Hardcastle “erred in awarding” fees to Skaff.

“It is axiomatic that plaintiff (Skaff) cannot prevail on a cause of action in which no violation of law was ever demonstrated or found,” the decision said.

Repeated efforts to contact Skaff at home and his attorneys with an El Segundo firm that specializes in disability rights litigation were unsuccessful.

The telephone number for Skaff’s Mill Valley-based nonprofit, Designing Accessible Communities, has been disconnected.

Baxter, a certified appellate court specialist, called the ruling for Metzger a “blockbuster” that “benefits all California businesses and helps protect them against groundless (disability) lawsuits.”

The roadhouse operated by Metzger and his wife, Raena Jones-Metzger, features a bar and restaurant, spacious patio and an 1,800-square-foot swimming pool open to the public all summer long.

A live music and wedding venue, the roadhouse is the only business in a community of about 520 residents with a vacant hotel, post office and fire station.

When floodwaters more than 6 feet deep engulfed the roadhouse last year, employees and regular customers pitched in to help the Metzgers rebuild.

On hot summer days that draw children to the pool, Metzger said he sells “more Popsicles than beer.”

The legal dispute stems from an October 2012 visit to the roadhouse by Skaff, a former Corte Madera city councilman who was once deputy director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office on Disability.

The place was packed with patrons watching simultaneous San Francisco Giants and 49ers games on television and the parking lot was full, including the only designated handicapped parking space, according to court documents.

Skaff “drove away and did not attempt to enter the bar,” court documents recounted. The appellate decision also noted that the roadhouse had, by 2016, spent nearly $28,000 to address virtually all of the access concerns cited by an expert witness hired by Skaff.

“All this guy did is spend three minutes in a parking lot,” Baxter said.

Following a 12-day trial without a jury in February 2017, Hardcastle ruled that Skaff could not collect damages from the roadhouse but authorized payment of his attorneys’ fees.

At the time, Skaff said in an email he was pleased with the ruling and felt “vindicated by the decision.”

Skaff and Metzger both appealed aspects of Hardcastle’s decision.

The hearing back in Sonoma County court must await the Oct. 20 deadline for Skaff to seek reconsideration by the appellate court.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.